[RCL] Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 29 or Canticle 13 (or Canticle 2); Romans 8:12-17; John 3:1-17 It has been said that it is far easier to preach to hundreds crowded into the church on Christmas or Easter than it is to discuss the doctrine of the Holy Trinity for a handful on a sleepy holiday weekend…

RCL: Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 29 or Canticle 13 (or Canticle 2); Romans 8:12-17; John 3:1-17 One of the challenges to proclamation on Trinity Sunday is that there are no Biblical passages that discuss the peculiar Christian understanding of God as three persons. The word in the creed is personas, like the mask Greek actors wear…

Every extraordinary experience sparks from the ordinary. Take a moment and reflect on the moments that have made you who you are today. Some of them may be spectacular, earth-shattering, heartbreaking, and more. But when we really take the time to reflect on what made us who we are right now, today, this moment, we…

We live in an age of conflict. It was probably always so, but we hear about things instantly nowadays and even find ourselves watching the most dreadful scenes while we blissfully consume a frozen dinner. Our nation seems locked in battle between contending parties and groups, and division and tension have wracked even our church….

NOTE TO READER: IF THIS SERMON IS USED IN WORSHIP, YOU MIGHT CONSIDER PLAYING THE MUSICAL NOTES DESCRIBED IN THE TEXT ON A PIANO. Imagine that you are sitting at a piano, and with your left hand you press down on the key in the middle of the keyboard middle C. What do you hear?…

Over thirty years ago, Karl Rahner, one of the finest theologians of this century, lamented the fact that most Christians are “mere monotheists.” By this he meant that if the doctrine of the Trinity were eliminated from the faith, then the bulk of popular Christian thinking, preaching, writing, and singing, and the mindset it reflects,…

It is Trinity Sunday. So we are meant to be thinking about God. Now it would seem that we should be doing this thinking about God all the time, but there is not a lot of evidence inside or outside the church that many of us really do that. The fact can, and perhaps should,…

“You have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” “No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and…

The doctrine of the Trinity, simply stated: There is One God and this One God is three “persons,” Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The three persons of the Trinity are equally God, “co-equal and co-eternal,” we say. One is not more divine than another. One is not subordinated to any other. But God is not…